Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Battle Report: Nurgle vs. Imperial Guard 1000 Points

The Battle/La Bataille

Had a nice little 1000 point Sunday match to break in my new urban table. I have only completed 4'x6' thus far but it was more than enough for our 1000 points game. We rolled Spearhead deployment with the annihilation game type, possibly my favourite from the standard games.

I put my havoc squads in the tower and the pumping station, then hid my plague marines and lord behind the walls of the pumping station. I hid my CSM squad out of harms way since I knew they would just be cannon fodder and an easy kill point.

Then my Chosen arrived and fired off two melta shots from their firepoints. This did nothing spectacularly despite two successful penetrations since I rolled 2 1's for damage. My other havocs then put a few more dents in a Chimera, immobilizing it but failing to crack it open. Thus my Chosen would have nothing to charge the following turn.

This was one of the low points of the game for me. My Chosen melta squad were blasted out of their ride and then were shot to bits before they got to do anything. 2 more killpoints for my adversary. I was not hopeful at this point.

To make things worse, my 2nd Chosen squad pulled a no-show. In an act of futile desperation, I rushed the not nearly weakened enough frontline of the Imperial Guard with my rhino full of plague marines.

My adversary succeeded in spooking my havocs, causing them to fail a leadership roll and turn tail and run. They regrouped though in my turn and headed back up in the tower. It was annoying because I did not get to shoot them but at least they were still in the game.

However, this was the turn when my luck changed. My Chosen arrived, barbecued two units with their flamers, beat the survivors down in close combat and then smugly stood there awaiting execution in the following turn.

I thought for sure that my Chosen were dead. My adversary shot everything he had, and when the dust cleared, my squad was still at over half strength. Then he charged them with his Catachan jungle fighters, and despite all their bravado, my three survivors instead brought the pain down on them, forced a leadership test, and the Catachans ran right off the board. These Chosen were truly a cut above the rest.

Although my adversary wished the game would end there, it carried on for one more turn. He did his best to deny me any killpoints that he could including hiding a lone lascannon survivor in the ruins. I still managed to grab another kp by killing his captain during his assault phase, leaving my Chosen free to assault something else during my turn.

The score was three to four so I had to do something, anything to grab two more points and win. Desperate I sent my rhino after his last surviving lascannon platform. The twin-linked bolter was sadly not enough to finish the job.

The havocs did better though. My adversary ran one of his last troop squads into the chimera for protection, and my havocs blew it up, spilling the contents for my Chosen to flame. Since I was standing in difficult terrain, I was not able to assault the survivors for I only rolled a 2 for movement. I tied the game with 2 potential killpoints just inches from my grasp. Better luck next time.

What I learned from this game is that the Guard are tissue thin. Like the Dark Eldar, they can give it but thay cannot take it. I basically tied up the game with two squads: the Havocs and the Chosen. My Chosen were mini wrecking balls throughout the final rounds. If I could figure out a way to get evrything working in concert, I'm sure I could do much better the next time.

That said, my opponent did express surpise that my Chosen could outflank. Thus I had an unfair advantage given he probably would have deployed differently had he known. Also, my luck was unbelievable given the amount of ammo the Guard expended trying to put them down.